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FAYETTEVXLLE : 
PRINTED BY EDWARD J. HALE. 

1844. 



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FAYETTEVILLE, Novemher 15, 1844. 
At a meeting of the Officers and Members of the Fayetteville Bar, 
Judge Bailey presiding, 

On motion by Mr. Toomer, 

* 

Mr. Wright, Mr. Reid, and Mr. W. Winslow, wore appointed a Com- 
mittee to convey to the Hon. Robert Strange the acknowledgments of 
liis professional brethren for the able and eloquent Eulogy of the Life and 
Character of William Gaston, delivered by him, at their request, and to 
eohcit a copy of tlie same for publication. 



E V LOG ¥•-. 



—•■•"e® ■&<«""— 



I come to praise, and not to bnry. 'Thv latter 
Lath been long since done — and corruption hath al- 
ready asserted her irresistible claim. To die is the 
lot of all men, and no one is denied his share in the 
inheritance oi" the orave. But to be praised after 
death is the [)roperty of a few, and a price must be 
paid to obtain an interest therein. Men give not 
praises for nothing, either to the livincr or to the dead. 
The consciousness ot every man that he hath but a 
short time to live, makes him covetous of a place in 
the memory of his fellow men, that he may continue 
to live there, when he shall have ceased to be among 
them in the activity of life. Among the ancient E- 
gyptians, men sought by the skill of the emiialraer to 
perpetuate their personal identity, after the immortal 
spirit had ceased to animate the body. To the same 
end, other clumsy expedients have been from time to 
time adopted; and some with one price, and some 
with another, have endeavored to ransom themselves 
from the oblivion belonmuo- to the grave. But Pos- 
terity, if not very liberal in her dealings with the de- 
parted, is yet veiy just, and will surely give to e\ery 
one exactl}^ what he has purchased. If he have laid 
out his money in the drugs and im[)lements of the 



embulmcr's art, Posteritv will look wilh wonder on 
relics of mortality, that have contrived to preserve 
for themselves some general resemblance to living 
humanity, after ^ges have rolled over them. It will 
desire to read the Hieroolvphicks written on the cere- 
cloth, and to decypher the name of this juggler with 
Death. If he have erected a Pyramid, to be for his 
body an eternal home. Posterity will give to that 
Pyramid the tribute of its wondering gaze, and will 
perforni pilgrimages to examine, and write volumes 
to explain, its size, its construction, the date of its be- 
ginning, and its purpose. But the Pyramid will 
probably, like the shell of the tortoise, be more es- 
teemed than its contents. If his deeds of beneficence 
have left something behind of which Posterity is daily 
taking benefit — Posterity will remember, as she takes 
the benefit, the name of her benefactor. And if his 
life have been a volume whose illuminated pnges fur- 
nish bright examples for mankind, "every day i' the 
hour Posterity will turn the leaf to read it," and think 
with gratitude of the gifted author. And such a 
volume was the life of William Gaston! It is be- 
cause we have read this volume, that we, my breth- 
ren, amono- the first and tiniest waves that shall roll 
in the ever moving Ocean of Posterity, are permitted 
to murmur out our gratitude, and lift up our heads in 
joy, that he once lived; and to sink them in sorrow, 
that he is no more. 

Whatever restraints dehcacy may impose among 
the livinsf, no one is so stern as to condemn the child 
who lavishes upon the remains of a deceased parent 



every mark of kindness, and couinicmorates with ar- 
dent gratitude his many virtues. And who but a few 
short months since was the acknowledged Father of 
the North Carohna Bar! The memory of each of 
us answers the question. And I say with honest 
pride, and a gush of correspondent affection, that a- 
mong no class of men are the ties of professional re- 
lationship more warmly felt, or more scrupulously 
acted upon, than among the Bar of North Carolina. 
It is a worthy and kind hearted family, in which a 
lively common sympathy prevails — where the most 
candid acknowledgments of superior worth are ever 
accorded — where right is most heartily conmiended, 
and compassion is ever alive for error — where the 
hand of kindness is extended to raise up the fallen, 
and the mantle of Charity unostentatiously cast over 
the faults of frailty. Can such a family suffer the 
loss of such a head without dropping a tear? or with- 
hold from his memory the tribute Q){ its praises? 
That portion of it constituting the Officers and Mem- 
bers of the Fayetteville Bar, in a kindness to me that 
I have so often gratefully experienced, hath selected 
me, on the present melancholy occasion, as the or^ran 
of Its utterance — and I esteem it not a task, but a 
holy and filial duty. 

It was my fate to be among the few of Judo-e Gas- 
ton's professional family who had an opportunity of 
seeiog him near the moment of his decease, and 
deeply did I feel,, while gazing on his yet warm re- 
mams, the force of the inspired exclamation, "Lord, 
what is man, that thou art mindful of him? Or the 



fU)!) ol' iu:i!), that ilnni visilest Lim?" If personal con- 
sequence was associated with the name oF any man 
in Noi'tii Crtrohiia, it was with that of Wilham Gas- 
toii. ii any nnyjit call with "voice potential" npon 
all human assistance to procrastinate the dav of doom 
it was William Gaston. If any would be so iTjissed 
from the organization of society as to suspend by his 
absence even for a moment Its action, it was William 
Gaston. If nature — kind nature — might be su])posed 
at all^ to sympathize in his last great agony with any 
man, it was witli Wilham Gaston. If anv great moral 
convulsion might be looked for in connexion W'ith his 
Death, it was with that of Willinm Gaston. But there 
he lay more powerless than the new born infant — 
and those lips whose accents had enchaiiled Senates 
and a,dded years to the existence of many other men, 
were breathlessly mute. I found him alone with the 
ministers of the grave, who were silently decking him 
in that simple apparel in which he is taking the long 
sleep of Death. Earthly hope had deserted him, and 
■with her those who had assisted him in his brief strife 
with Death — and yet I knew l)y the hum of human 
voices in the distance, that society was as busy with 
the hopes — the desires — the passions — the pleasures 
— the distresses of this earthly existence, — as though 
William Gaston lived. And the moonbeam that 
had bghted my ])ath, and the night w'ind that, strug- 
gling in at the casement, was agitating the thm gray 
locks upon his forehead, told me that nature was in 
quiet. And the stillness amid which was heard even 
the ticking of a watch, and the melancholy comp'5- 



9 

sure Willi which my companions look<:(l upon iho 
scene, assured me that no oreat mfn-al convulsion 
was impending — and I was oj^presscd wiih a sense 
of this world's notbinonoss — and full of thoughts too 
deep for utterance. That morning I had seen him 
enter the capitol of the State, (not in his wonted 
health to he sure, but still he was himself) — the in- 
structive, the cheerful companion — the just, the be- 
nevolent man — the wise, the learned Judoe — the great 
moral machine performing all its functions in the same 
beautiful order and propriety that had been its wont 
— his memory as rich as ever in its judicial treasures, 
and his iudi>ment deali"ns^ them out with its accus- 
tomed accuracy. And now, to see wdiere all this had 
so lately been — dead, blank clay! It was enough to 
bewilder reason, and make her reject the evidence of 
the senses. }jut reason had lono- since known that 
"to this complexion all must come at last," and yet 
the sad reality had well nigh "friohted her from her 
propriety." 

Those to whom Judge Gaston was bound by the 
ties of blood, were far, far away, — cherishing for him 
hopes of many more years of life and honor and use- 
fulness, and confidently believing him as happy and 
prosperous and well, as in their own fond hearts they 
wished him. Doubtless they think, now that it is 
past, that there would have l)een a melancholy satis- 
faction in performing for him many nameless acts of 
tenderness, and in giving and receiving tokens of af- 
fecrion, which the approach of Death would have 
suggested. But such regrets are probably founded 



10 

oil a misconceplion of the true state of the case. 
Judoe Gaston was one of those to whom the midnioht 
cry, "Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to 
meet hhn," would bring neither surprise nor terror; — 
but there is reason to think, that although his mind 
was deeply embued with a sense of the uncertainty of 
human life, and was even impressed with a conviction 
that his own remaining span was probably short, yet 
that but a little while preceding his dissolution, the 
assunyices of his ph3'sician as to the nature of his dis- 
ease had freed him from all immediate apprehension, 
and that the death struggle came upon him almost as 
unlooked for as ui>on the litte lamented victims on 
board the Princeton. For he was conversing with 
his wonted cheerfulness with his friend the Chief Jus- 
tice, (who sincerely loved him, and most affection- 
ately waited upon his last hours,) when a change be- 
ing seen in liis countenance, he was asked "if he would 
take something to refresh him." "I will take any 
thing," was his expressive reply — and in another mo- 
ment he was still forever. He had then none of 
those tedious and hard wrestlings with the great ene- 
m}-, in which the encouragemeiits, the counsel, the 
consolations, of friends, are so eminently needed. But 
so far as these could have served he had them — not 
from kindred after the flesh it is true — but from those 
who had borne with him the heat and burden of life's 
weary day, and amid the labors and struggles of that 
day had become well acquainted with all his necessi^ 
ties. I too had occasionally met Judge Gaston in 
the great field of life, and in speaking of him, in part 



11 

I speak ^^llat I do know. 1 liave fecn bim at llic 
Bar — oil the Bcucli— in our State Legislnl.ure, and 
in the .social circk^; and it is no disparagement to 
others to say, that in none of those various depart- 
ments have 1 met his supei'ior. He ^vas an abki and 
elo(|uent advocate — a sagacious and learned judge — 
a most discreet and intelligent legislator — a ripe 
scholar — charming and brilliant in his powers of con- 
versation, in which wisdom and learning were sea- 
soned with wit n.nd anecdote. His benevolence even 
attracted children around him, and condescended to 
enter into their childish griefs, pleasures, and busi- 
ness. He was courteous to every one, although a 
diffidence couspicuous in ever}^ thing he did, gave him 
often to the stranger an appearance of distant and 
haughty reserve. He was in short an ornament to 
our profession — the admiration and model of all its 
members. But his star has set in the dark valley of 
the shadow of Death; and we have met to speak 
mournfully our gratitude fjr its past glory — to admire 
its lioht yet linocrino- in the horizon, and to breathe 
out our hopes, that it will rise again to shine in the 
firmament forever and forever. 

The dead cannot be benefited by any thing done 
in tiieir commemoration, but survivors may gather 
from the grave most useful treasures, as they bend o- 
ver it in sorj-ow for a decavino- tenant. A iudicious 
dispensation of j)raise, even to the living, is often em- 
inently useful, not so much to the subject of that 
praise as to those who bestow and those who hear it. 
I believe no civilized people under the sun is so spar- 



12 



ing of praise, either to the dead or to the livin^^, as 
the people of North Carohiia. We are so accustom- 
ed to see every one around us quietjj and steadily 
walking in the path of duty, accordino- to his ability; 
and our minds are so generally embued with the Gos- 
pel truth, that after all, the most highly gifted and 
virtuous are but unprofitable servants, that real merit 
excites in us no surprize; and there is a vein of home- 
ly wisdom running through our scattered population, 
which,^ in connexion with its sparseness, forbids the 
excitement by which intellectual mountebanks cheat 
in the semblance of gold and precious stones with the 
tinsel glitter of light and shallow accomplishments 
coupled with bold assumption and confident preten- 
sion. Still, praise judiciously bestowed, is like money 
well laid out— while it enriches others, it benefits our- 
selves, and gives a wholesome excitement to the in- 
tercourse of life. To a State, her sons are her jew- 
els, even more emphatically thnn to the Roman ma- 
tron. The value of any thing is more a matter of es- 
timation than of fact; and this estimati(m is not the o- 
pinion of one or two persons, but the general opinion 
of the community. ]\Iuch the greater part of every 
community forms its opinion upon the decisions of o- 
thers, whose means of judging are better, or supj^osed 
to be better, than its own; and seldom is the judg- 
ment of each individual brought to bear upon a sub- 
ject. Hence, when the people of South Carolina or 
Virginia, or of any other State, laud and magnify 
some liivorite citizen, echo brings back the peal from 
other States, and voices a thousand and ten thousand 



13 

times compounded, fill the welkin willi ;in ii-r('sistil)Io 
volume of ap[)rol)Htion. And when Virgil is praised 
who does not think ot" JManlua! And if anv citv 
could have established an undisputed clann to have 
been the birth-place of Homer, would she not have 
been the first among the cities of Greece? When a 
State, then, lauds one of her own children, she but 
pours upon him a flood of glory t(3 be reflected back 
upon herseli' in more dazzling splendor, and her home- 
ly- rocks and her lonely rivers glitter and shine in the 
brightness of his fame — and men are attracted by the 
blaze, gather around it, and, rejoicing in its brilliancy, 
that State becomes great and populous. What does 
not Virginia owe, in her conspicuous and long con- 
tinued position in this Union, to the fame of Wash- 
ington, and Jeflerson, and Henry, and Madison, and 
a host of others on whom she had cast the prismatic 
brightness of her own praises'? And South Carolina, 
by wresting the trumpet from Fame herself, and 
blowing with unceasing blasts the name of some fa- 
yored son, has come to be justly honored as the mo- 
ther of great men. But where are the jewels of our 
own State? Has she none? And were there ne^•e^ 
any to whom and from whom she niight giye and re- 
ceive this glorious lustre? Alas! although her jewels 
have been many, she has seldom or never turned up- 
on them the full light of her countenance: and hence, 
although we who know her well, value her as she 
deserves, few and faint are those rays of reflected 
glory that might attract the eye of the stranger, and 
win him to ad u] ire and exalt her. W^e have been 



u 

taunted with supiiieness, with being wrapt in the sha- 
dow of an intellectual nioht, and that for almost an a^e 
only the kindling genius of Gaston has shone like a 
solitary star amid the gloom to mark our existence 
among the States. Men have gazed upon the bright- 
ness oi' this star, and like the Magi of old, attracted 
therel)}^ have been led to inquire of the distant and 
unknown country on which it rose — and William 
Gaston has for years past been the very impersona- 
tion of North Carolina, and few, very few, have spo- 
ken of the one without thinkino- of the other. But as 
we have said, that star is now set; and other e3-es be- 
side our own have missed it from our sky. The 
death of Judi>"e Gaston has been mournfullv noted in 
many portions of the Union, and North Carolina hath 
been honored in ree;rets for her son. It is not onlv 
just, but expedient, that we too should mourn him, 
and in peribrming this pious duty to the dead, learn 
somethino- of what is due to the livinu' — and bv a fu- 
ture more liberal and just estimation of our own in- 
tellectual wealth, assume our rightful position among 
the sister States. Praises, too, have in tliem another 
value. To praise discreetly we must contem})late 
the object of our praise; thus will we learn in part to 
copy what we look upon and admire — and hence 
perhnps the Benevolent Author of our Holy Religion 
has made the praises of the Almighty so large a por- 
tion of a Christian's duty. It were blasphemy to say, 
that in contemplating the object of the present eulogy 
we should find a faultless model for imitation. But 
of his faults, if any, (and doubtless he had some,) it is 



not, mine to speak. Let thcin be liitklen fioin \ iovv 
aiiiitl his clu.stering virtues, and bo buried forever with 
liis ashes in his grave. But let his virtues hve after 
him, and, through tliem, let him speak to us in jiareu- 
tal admonition and eneoiiragement. 

The late William Gaston was born at Newbern, 
North Carolina, on the 10th day of September 1778, 
amid the heat and fury of our Revolutionarv struo-- 
gle, and must of course on the day of his death have 
been one of the verv few whose life reached back to 
that interesting j^eriod. His father. Dr. Alexander 
Gaston, was a native of a town in the North of Ire- 
land, descended from French ancestors, who had es- 
caped from the persecutions let loose upon the Hu- 
guenots, by the revocation of the famous edict of Nantz. 
He was the younger brother of the Rev. Hugh Gas- 
ton, who was a Protestant Divine of much distinction, 
and the author of a Concordance to the Scriptures, a 
work of high authority among Christians. Dr. Gas- 
ton having before the Revolution become a resident 
of North Carolina, was no idle spectator of the do- 
mestic strife there waged between the friends of the 
old firm of government and the advocates of the new, 
but took sides under the bias so common among his 
countrymen of Ireland, and was a Whig of 1776, not 
only in word. but in deed, and ultimately fell a sacri- 
fice to the fury of the Tory party, under circumstan- 
ces most remarkable for holv and heroic devotion on 
one hand, and of fiendish ferocity on the other. Judge 
Gaston's mother, JNIargaret Sharpe, had been married 
lo his father in Mav 1775, and more than six years of 



16 

floniosUc peaco lnul passed over tbein, marred to be 
sure !)_v the troubles of the times and the early death 
of tlieir first son by some ordinary disease. But 
the subject ol" our reniarks and a little girl had been 
successively sent by Providence to occupy their pa- 
rental affections and strengthen the bond of their u- 
nion; and nothino seemed wanting but a more settled 
condition of their country, to afford them a due share 
of earthly happiness. Little William had nearly at- 
tained his thii-d year, and it could not have escaped 
the keen discernment of parents that he was a child 
of promise. Their hopes gathered around him, and 
endeared them more and more to each other. But 
Newbern, which, lying at the junction of two noble 
streams, the Neuse and Trent, and thus almost sur- 
rounded by water, and which had been in a good de- 
gree exempt from those scenes of blood and horror 
'so common in other parts of the country, was on the 
20th of August, 1781, suddenly invaded by a party of 
British and Tories, and, unprepared for defence, eve- 
ry male capable of bearing arms, who was unwillino- 
to say "God save King George," had no safety but in 
flight. Dr. Gaston fled, and betaking himself with o- 
thers to a flat, or scow, endeavored to cross the Trent 
River, there nearly a mile in width, and seek an asy- 
lum on the other side. His fond wife, perceiving 
that his steps were marked by the foe, and that he 
was pursued with a murderous purpose, rushed to his 
rescue. Using the proper weapons of her sex, she 
threw herself upon her knees before his pursuers, and 
with tears and sighs entreated for his hfe. But in hia 



17 

slow moving vessel the gallant Doctor stood an in- 
viting mark for loyal vengeance, and over the very 
shoulders of liis wife a hard-hearted riiliian dis- 
charged the shot which terminated his existence. 

o 

"She came — 'twas but to add to slaughter," 
His heart's best blood is on the waterl 

Thus perished the father of William Gaston, an 
honored sacrifice on the altar of his adopted coun- 
try: and thus was a horrible blight brought upon the 
young and gentle heart of his mother. She became 
a widow indeed, and the same explosion b}^ which 
her husband was slain, shattered forever the mj^ste- 
rious texture of her own nervous system. She was 
an invalid for life, and devoted the remainder of her 
days to her God, to rearing her orphans, and teach- 
ing thfcm to tread the paths of virtue and religion. 
It was to the lessons she taught, that her gifted son 
mainly attributed his success and usefulness in after 
life. She was represented by him to have been "a- 
mono- the noblest of created beinos." With feelins^s 

O CD 5 

exceedingly strong, a sensibility he never saw ex- 
ceeded — no emotion, no passion, could ever induce 
her to swerve on an^- occasion from what she believed 
to be the course of duty. "Whatever there may be 
of good in me," he said, "I attribute it to her." And 
it is worthy of remark, that history teems with in- 
stances in which the most conspicuous men of the 
time have owed their training to the anxious and 
untiring care of a widowed mother. The virtues 
and excellencies of his mother, was a theme ot wdiich 
the late Mr. Gaston seemed never to tire, and while 



18 

it proves the sterling qualities of that exemplary pa- 
rent, it strongly marks the virtuous susceptibilities of 
the heart of her son. How many mothers devote the 
energies of their lives to the training of their sons! 
And yet how seldom is their labor of love repaid with 
gratitude! To him, however, the crowning gratifica- 
tion of having achieved the first honors of his Alma 
Mater, was laying them at the feet of his mc^ther and 
feeling conscious of the maternal pride he had roused 
in her bosom. But a mother could only lay the deep 
and strong foundations on which others must build; 
yet on the depth and strength of those foundations 
mainly depended the whole future worth of the fabric. 
Mr. Gaston left his mother's immediate care at an 
early age, and acquired the rudiments of a fine edu- 
cation under the most approved private instrucrers of 
the time. In the Fall of 1791, being; only about thir- 
teen years of age, he was sent to the Colleece of 
Georgetown, in the District of Columbia. This insti- 
tution was then, like himself, in its infancy, and like 
him has improved its advantages until it has achieved 
success and a high reputation. And how far they 
may have mutually cheered onward and supported 
each other in the road to fame, I am unal)le to say. 
There the religious principles he had inherited from 
his mother, who was an English Roman Catholic, 
were strengthened and fully developed. And while 
I would not comprorait the sacred Protestant opinions 
in which so many of us have been educated, and as I 
trust in connexion with the most cheering of eternal 
hopes, I would not take advantage of the occasion to 



in 

disparaoe the Roman Catholic faith — for if that an- 
cient tree had always borne such fruit as it did in the 
person of Wihiani Gaston, few would bo found to 
question its claim to be considered the true Church 
of God. By the Spring of 1793, the bleak winds of 
the Potomac Valley had so affected his constitution, 
as to excite serious fears that Consumption, that sub- 
tle and common enemy of genius, had marked him 
for one of its victims. jMr. Gaston was therefore ad- 
vised to return to the benignant climate of the Old 
North State. Here the air, freighted with the bal- 
samic influence of her pines, mingled with the fra- 
grance of the grape, the jessamine, and the wild crab, 
soon restored health to his lungs and vigor to his con- 
stitution- .With renewed energy he recommenced 
his academical studies, under the Rev'd Thomas P. 
Irvinof, a man of much distinction in that most ardu- 
ous and generally most thankless office, of training 
the youthful mind. In the Autumn of 1794 he en- 
tered the Junior Class at Princeton Colleoe and was 
soon marked as its leader, which distinguished posi- 
tion he maintained during his course. In 1796 he was 
graduated, when, to use his own language, "it was 
one of the proudest moments of my life when I was 
enabled to write to my mother, that I had obtained 
the first honor of the class." Soon after his return 
from Princeton, he commenced the study of the Law, 
in his native town, under the direction of Francis 
Xavier Martin, Esquire, then a successful practising 
lawyer in that region of country, but lor many years 
past, and now at a very advanced period of life, a 



?0 

Judge of tlie Supreme Court of Louisiana. In en- 
tering upon the study of the law, Mr. Gaston sacri- 
ficed a purpose which he liad somewhat cherished, 
of adopting the mihtary profession — cherished per- 
haps from an almost instinctive and half defined im- 
pulse, to be the avenger of his father's blood, and of 
his mother's blighted hopes. In 1798 he commenced 
the professional career, afterwards so brilliant and so 
long continued. And here, mj younger professional 
brethren, let us mark the friendly light which his ex- 
ample casts upon the untrodden path that lies before 
you. He did not set out with the mere sordid pur- 
pose of making money — "of wringing from the hard 
hands of peasants their vile trash by any indirection" 
— by the mere exhibition of his parchn;ent and a 
showy display of light and superficial acquirements, 
in the absence of every thing justly entitling him to 
their confidence and qualifying him to conduct their 
afiairs. Even as a lawyer, he did not consider him- 
self a mere human animal, destined to get through 
life in the appropriation to himself of as large a share 
as possible of its sensual delights and pecuniary ad- 
vantaoes, but as a moral and Intellectual beinsr, des- 
tined to live an eternal life, of which his present state 
was a beginning — inconsiderable in itself it is true, 
but pregnant with immense results for the future; — 
that he owed to himself and to his family to labor not 
merely for the bread thnt perisheth even in his pro- 
fession, but for a fame that might live after him, and 
be to them a richer inheritance than the charter of 
an Earldom; — that he owed it to the profession he had 



21 

adopted, as far as in liim lay In render it not a mere 
system oi' trick and arliiice, ^^'llere the cunning and 
least scrupulous should reap the largest profits — but 
a noble and ennobling science, embracing those eter- 
nal principles of right and \vr()ng; those great truths, 
moral and metaph^'sical, of which the Ahniglity ^^'^s 
hunself the Author, and which it had been the lousi- 
ness of the great and good through all nges to search 
out and illustrate — to rememlier that it was a profes- 
sion not destined to perish with himself, but that, in 
countless succession, others without number were to 
follow him, whose happiness, usefulness, and moral 
dignity, would materially depend upon the footmarks 
he mi"ht leave in the road before them; — that he 
owed it to his clients, whose confidence he sought, 
and on whose patronage he waited, not to bring to 
their service a mere smattering in his profession, and 
an impudent confidence that success might crown per- 
chance his blundering efforts; but by patient industr}'- 
to acfiuire a skill bv which he mioht confidently warn 
them when they were wrong, and achieve for them, 
with the utmost certainty that belongs to any thing 
human, success when they were right; — that he owed 
it to his countiy, by all in his power to render her 
administration of justice pui-e, dignified, and enlight- 
ened, hljeral and effective. To these noble ends he 
directed the eneroies of his vigorous mind with un- 
wearied application. To accomplish them, he did 
not suppose that the Temple of the Law must be a 
oothic edifice, consistino- of stiff mathematical figures 
and marked with black letter inscriptions — but that 



09 



all the arts and sciences should be invoked to give it 
strength and beauty. That law should be forever 
divorced from Eloquence and Poetry, and that laAv- 
yers shouhl be ashamed to speak well lest it might be 
supposed they were incapable of thought — were such 
barbarian fancies as dwelt not in his brain; but he 
justly deemed, that truth loses nothing from being 
gracefully set foith, and that although in a state of 
nature we may not be shocked at the sight of naked 
men, vet in a civilized communltv it is not beneath 
the dignity of the most intelligent to array himself 
with taste and even with elegance; — that if men have 
heads they have hearts also; and that under all cir- 
cumstances each IS entitled to be regarded as one of 
the constituents of the intellectual man. Hence, while 
he was content that Coke and his black gowned as- 
sociates might lay the foundations and Iniild up the 
walls of his edifice, he desired that Chatham, and 
Burke, and Sheridan, and Pope, and Dryden, and 
Johnson, and Shakspeare, and others such, should 
carve its cornices, its columns, and pilasters; and that 
the ^vild (lowers of Poetr^^ from every clime, should 
be planted around to beautify, to freshen its atmo- 
sphere, and fill it with fragrance. And he vv'as un- 
willino- that even Music should be expelled from its 
sacred recesses, but chose rather that they should 
echo every pleasant sound, from the solemn organ, to 
the haht sons; of the Troubadour. An American law- 
yer surely is not meant to be a mere black letter in- 
dex — but a noble spacious cabinet of intelligence, 
where every one may seek for and find something to 



IS, 1/ 



his taste. Nor shall he be a licensed pickpocket, to 
appropriate the money of every thoughtless, idle, or 
passionate mortal he may meet, by virtue of his parch- 
ment from the Supreme Court, without possessing the 
qualities of which that parchment testifies — but labor- 
ino- for the public with his might and main, and elab- 
oratino- and combining for the common good, theolo- 
gy, metaphysics, mechanics, eloquence, poetry, and 
every thing else that can delight and ennoble the hu- 
man understanding, he is not unjustly an unstinted pen- 
sioner upon public contribution. vSo thought j\[r. 
Gaston; and while he devoted himself with untiring 
zeal to the sterner labors of his profession, his spare 
moments were cheered and improved with the Poe- 
try of Glueen Anne's age, (the British Augustan age, 
as it has been called,) and other like intellectual re- 
pasts;- and even while riding to his Courts, has the in- 
tellectual man, in the pursuit of its own enjo^^ments 
in the pages of Scott and others, so far forgotten the 
physical, as to expose it to numberless and sometimes 
serious hazards. He was also a model to us all in 
the happy control of his temper, by which, through 
the long course of his practice, he avoided those pain- 
ful professional discords, which so many of us have 
cause with shame to remember, even in our own short 
experience. 

LeLjislation is in our country so intimately connect- 
ed with the administration of law, and a knowledge 
of existing laws is so very necessary in altering them 
or making new ones, that it is not wonderful so many 
oi" our profession constitute portions of our Legislative 



•2i 

bodies. Accordingly, Mr. Gaston was often a mem- 
ber of our State Legislature, and first in 1800, as a 
member of our State Senate. In 1808, Mr. Gaston 
was chosen from the District in which he resided, an 
Elector for President and Vice President of the Unit- 
ed States. In 1813 he took his seat in Congress, by 
the election of his District, and ncted with the Fede- 
ral party for the four years he continued in Congress, 
as indeed he did during his life. This period, em- 
bracino; the greater part of the last War with Great 
Britain, was one of intense interest, and aflbrded fine 
opportunities for talent on either side to display itself; 
and accordingly, though but a young man, with but a 
limited term of service, JNIr. Gaston greatly distin- 
guished himself even among the great spirits of that 
time, and the enduring reputation that he left behind 
him, and that still lingers in the Halls of the National 
Legislature, declares him a man of no common p*ow- 
ers. His speeches upon the Lotin Bill and the Pre- 
vious Question, advantageously shewed forth those 
abilities which carried him triumphantly through so 
many trials. The peculiar cast of his political opin- 
ions must be spoken of by me in the same measured 
and cautious terms in which I have spoken of his re- 
ligious. Upon these subjects it is perhaps my mis- 
fortune to have diflcred with him. I cannot there- 
fore applaud, and I will not condemn. On both, his 
sentiments were sincerely and conscientiously enter- 
tained, and were always maintained and defended 
with wonderful ability. But his temper wa,s too 
kind and amiable for him willingly to engage in any 






dispLiUiLioii to which a sense of duty (to which he al- 
ways yielded) did not impeL So benevolent and so- 
cial was his disposition, that no jarring chord was ev- 
er struck by him in the company of any for whom he 
felt respect; and with great adroitness would lie give 
a playful and humorous turn to conversation, when 
disputes were lils.ely to arise between others. Claim- 
ino' for himself the right to think for himself, he cheer- 
fully accorded to others the same privilege. Among 
the trophies of Mr. Gaston in our State Legislature, 
may be reckoned the act of 1808, reaulatinof the de- 
scent of real estate, the act of 1818, establishing our 
Supreme Court upon its present system; and able 
speeches upon subjects innumerable. He might have 
had a seat upon the Supreme Court Bench upon its 
first organization, but by his own wish, as I think, his 
name was not openly proposed, and his distinguished 
relative, the late Chief Justice Taylor, the late Chief 
Justice Henderson, and the late Judge Hall, consti- 
tuted the first Supreme Court Bench, remarkable a- 
like for judicial learning and integrit}^ It is hardly 
a digression to say, that between himself and Chief 
Justice Taylor, who married his sister, (that other or- 
phan of the bloody Trent,) a most unwavering and 
devoted friendship existed during many of the later 
years of the former, in which was strikingly illustrat- 
ed the strong attachment with which Mr. Gaston's 
heart was wont to fasten on its object. After Judge 
Taylor ascended the Supreme Court Bench, Mr. 
Gaston pursued his profession with great zeal and 
brilliant success, and even aftei- the death of Judge 
4 



26 

Taylor, until 1833, vvlien the death of Cliief Justice 
Henderson opened a vacancy, which, yielding to the 
solicitations of his friends, he consented to hll. The 
deference felt for his fame and talents by those who 
had preceded him on the Supreme Court Bench, and 
with whom he had become associated, would have 
accorded to him the place of Chief Justice. But liis 
modesty and sense of expediency induced him to de- 
cline — thinking it better to establish the precedent 
that seniority in commission should confer that high 
distinction, than that a way should be opened for e- 
lectioneering and intrigue, for jealousy and disap- 
pointment. Soon after his attainment of a seat upon 
the Bench of the Supreme Court of his native State^ 
a Convention assembled to amend her Constitution. 
Of this Convention his native County elected him a 
member. Here he was as usual "the observed of all 
observers" — the master spirit of that great and distin- 
guished body. His identification with the State was 
thus completed. By a remarkable coincidence his 
exertions had mainly prevented the removal of the 
Seat of Governm.ent from Raleigh, and contributed 
to fix it there for ages to come, by the enduring and 
magnificent pile of native granite which has been e- 
rected into the State House. So that in times to 
come, if a visiter to the State shall seek the Halls of 
her Capitol, his very tread will wake up in echo the 
name of William Gaston. If he look into her organic 
law, he will find it impressed with the genius of Wil- 
liam Gaston. If he turn to her legislative records, 
there also v/ill he read the name of William Ga.&ton. 



27 . 

If he search among her judicial lore, its pages will 
bear the name of WilUam Gaston. In his attainment 
o( a scat upon the Supreme Court Bench, the inter- 
ests of the pabhc and those of Judge Gaston coinci 
ded. All admitted him without a rival in fitness for 
that branch of public sci-vice, considering his moral, 
intellectual, and physical (jualifications. His pecunia- 
ry condition Avas now such as to render large profes- 
sional receipts no longer necessary to him, and to 
meet his w^ants, a moderate salary was all that would 
be required in addition to the income of his estate. 
His advancintr aoe made rest needfal to Ihm; — and 
the approach of eternity demanded all advantages for 
preparation to meet it. All these considerations were 
ha})pily met in the office he now filled. The salary 
of the office was a handsome one — and the calm and 
passionless discharge of his judicial duties gave rest 
to his body, and health to his soul, as was most hap- 
pily expressed by himself in his very last letter to his -"'1 
eldest daughter. "To administer Justice," said he, 
"in the last resort — to expound and apply the laws 
for the advancement of right and the suppression of 
wrong, is an ennobling and indeed a holy office; and 
the exercise of its functions, wdiile it raises my mind 
above the mists of Earth-born cares and passions, into 
a pure and serene atmosphere, always seems to im- 
part fresh vigor to my understanding, and a better 
temper to my whole soul." With such views and 
sentiments, and from such a position, it is no wc^nder 
'that his exit more resembled a translation than a death 
—and that the space between his active usefulness a- 



2S 

•fiei?.ir riien, and his entrance upon tlie more extensive 
and untold duties of another world, should have been 
contracted to a span. That liis bright career was 
thus suddenly ended, has already been told. He died 
about 8 o'clock on the evening of the 23d day of 
January 1S44. 

Such are some of the things that have been done 
bv one of our profession to ciiallenge our admiration 
and excite us to emulate them. The story is before 
us, and each must draw for himself the appropriate 
moral. We have thus seen Mr. Gaston, since w^e left 
him lisiiino^ his mother's name in infancy, and still re- 
peating it in childhood and youth, chiefly as a public 
man: — and are led to admire him as we would some 
bright particular star wdiose glory was distant and un- 
attainable to us. But it is in the social circle, and by 
the domestic hearth, that the hearts of those who have 
seen him there, melt in sympathy and gush out with 
affection towards him. In society he partook with a 
cheerfid heart (subordinate at all times to the regula- 
tions of his Church) of whatever delighted other men. 
And while he seldom turned his back upon the fes- 
tive board, he gave no countenance to intemperance 
or excess. His own table was always hospitably and 
liberally, but unostentatiously spread, and where he 
was present the intellect was ever more treated than 
the palate. The understanding and the imagination 
was each allowed its jiortion; and an appropriate and 
well .told anecdote was never wanting to amuse and 
illustrate the topic of conversation. The filial is the 
first domestic relationship in which Providence places 



20 

us, and the manner in wlucli its dalies are cli-scliarged 
is generally a sure indication ol' how those which lol- 
low will be filled. And accordingly, as Judge Gaston 
was a most exemplary son, he ]>rovcd in after lite a 
kind brother, a most devoted, faithful, and afi'ection- 
ate husband, an indulgent, yet wise and conscientious 
Parent. He was thrice married, but survived bv 
many years the last of his wives. His sister yet lives: 
and several children, who have well repaid his pa- 
rental care, were left to mingle their voices with the 
wailings which followed him to the tomb, and to stand 
with pride beneath the overshadowing greatness of 
his name — a name that descends not with his body 
to the Earth, nor passes to the Heavens with his ns- 
cending spirit; but remains behind like the odour of 
de})arted flowers — marking forever the place where 
he has been. 



^-4 



